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Our Best Ever Buttermilk Biscuits Recipe

Whether you're a biscuit person or a cornbread person, here at Southern Living, we think everyone should know how to make the perfect biscuit. Fluffy or flaky? Butter or lard? Everyone has an opinion about what makes a biscuit great. To settle the debate, our Test Kitchen baked hundreds of biscuits until we landed on our all-time favorite, no-fail recipe that will impress new cooks and old pros alike - and luckily for us, they are sharing their secret tricks with us. Perfectly flaky and reminiscent of Grandma's best biscuit recipe, this yummy Southern staple will become your new go-to breakfast (and lunch, and dinner) side. Or, if you're really feeling daring, try one of these flavorful biscuit variations.

Follow a few simple steps to make our Best Ever Buttermilk Biscuit in your own kitchen. We’ve learned a few secrets to the method over the years that have perfected our recipe. First, grate a frozen stick of butter on a box grater. Grated butter gives a more even distribution of fat throughout the dough, which will make the biscuits light and fluffy. Combine the butter with White Lily self-rising flour. (We always use this type of flour because it’s made with a softer winter wheat; it has less protein and less gluten so the biscuits will be much more tender.) Chill the butter and flour mixture for 10 minutes. Take out the mixture and create a well in the center, pouring in the buttermilk. Stir together the ingredients. We’ve found that it takes 15 stirs to incorporate all of the ingredients and have perfectly textured dough. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and roll it out into a rectangular shape with a rolling pin. Fold the dough over, and roll it into a rectangle again. Repeat this process four more times. This layering technique gives the biscuits lots of flaky layers. Dip a cutter in flour, and cut the biscuits straight up and down. Lay parchment paper over your pan, and position the biscuits on it so that they are touching. (This helps them rise in the over.) Bake in the oven at 475°F for 15 minutes. As the biscuits are cooling, brush the tops with melted butter.

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<p>[MUSIC] At Southern Living we think everybody should know how to make a fabulous biscuit. Which is why we've come up with this foolproof recipe and technique for what we think is the best buttermilk biscuit in the world. I'm gonna show you how to do it. First you need a box grater and a sheet of parchment paper. And this is how we're going to cut our butter into our flour. It's our secret technique. [MUSIC] So you're going to take a frozen stick of butter and grate it on the big holes of the box grater. [SOUND] So we do this with the butter cuz you get a more even distribution of fat throughout the biscuit dough which will make them light and fluffy all over. When you get to the end, [SOUND] you want to take. Your frozen, grated butter. And you wanna combine it with two and 1/2 cups of White Lily Self-Rising Flour. We always, always use White Lily flour because White Lily flour is actually made from a softer, winter wheat which has less protein in it, which means you'll have less gluten in your biscuits. So they'll be much more tender. Now I'm gonna add the grated, frozen butter to my flour. And you just kind of want to toss it together with your fingers. So we want this to be super cold when we're making our dough. So I'm going to put it in the freezer for ten minutes. Okay so I've got my butter and flour mixture that's been chilling and one cup of cold buttermilk. And I'm going to make a well in the center of the butter and flour mixture [MUSIC] And pour the buttermilk in. So now we're going to bring the dough together. And a lot of people talk about how you can overwork biscuit dough, but believe it or not there's actually such a thing as underworking dough. If you underwork the dough, when it bakes, the biscuits will have a kind of a raw floury taste. So you definitely want to make sure the ingredients are incorporated. And we found that if you do it this way and stir it 15 times, you'll have the perfect texture dough. [SOUND] Okay. So I've done 15 stirs. And as you can see, the dough has kind of pulled away from the sides of the bowl. We're ready to roll. You want to take some more self-rising flour and lightly flour your surface. And then turn the dough out onto the surface. [MUSIC] We like to use a rolling pin to roll our dough and that's because the heat of your hands will sometimes melt the butter and we don't want it to be melted, we want it to stay cold. So I'm gonna sprinkle a little bit of flour on the top and flour my rolling pin and then I'm gonna shape this into A rectangle. And, then what you're going to do is take the rectangle and fold it in half. And this is a layering process that will help the biscuits get lots of flaky layers. So, I'm going to actually do this folding process, I'm going to turn the dough and do it four more times. So, five times total. After we roll it this time, we're going to cut it so I'm going to roll it to about a half inch thick. [MUSIC] So before you start cutting, you want to have a [SOUND] jelly roll pan or baking sheet ready with parchment paper on it. What you want to do is dip the cutter in the flour before each cut and then cut straight up and down. When you get to the end and you can't fit anymore, don't worry you'll be rolling the scraps. [MUSIC] But take the biscuits that you've cut out and place them on the parchment paper so that they're touching. When they're touching they kind of help each other rise in the oven. Okay so we've got them on the parchment lined paper, all nestled together, and I'm going to put them in the oven at 475 for about 15 minutes. Okay so these have baked in the oven at 475 for 15 minutes. You can see they've risen up and they look flaky and fluffy. And the last thing we're gonna do is brush them with some melted butter. And here you have it, Southern Living's perfect buttermilk biscuit. [MUSIC]</p>

<p>[MUSIC] At Southern Living we think everybody should know how to make a fabulous biscuit. Which is why we've come up with this foolproof recipe and technique for what we think is the best buttermilk biscuit in the world. I'm gonna show you how to do it. First you need a box grater and a sheet of parchment paper. And this is how we're going to cut our butter into our flour. It's our secret technique. [MUSIC] So you're going to take a frozen stick of butter and grate it on the big holes of the box grater. [SOUND] So we do this with the butter cuz you get a more even distribution of fat throughout the biscuit dough which will make them light and fluffy all over. When you get to the end, [SOUND] you want to take. Your frozen, grated butter. And you wanna combine it with two and 1/2 cups of White Lily Self-Rising Flour. We always, always use White Lily flour because White Lily flour is actually made from a softer, winter wheat which has less protein in it, which means you'll have less gluten in your biscuits. So they'll be much more tender. Now I'm gonna add the grated, frozen butter to my flour. And you just kind of want to toss it together with your fingers. So we want this to be super cold when we're making our dough. So I'm going to put it in the freezer for ten minutes. Okay so I've got my butter and flour mixture that's been chilling and one cup of cold buttermilk. And I'm going to make a well in the center of the butter and flour mixture [MUSIC] And pour the buttermilk in. So now we're going to bring the dough together. And a lot of people talk about how you can overwork biscuit dough, but believe it or not there's actually such a thing as underworking dough. If you underwork the dough, when it bakes, the biscuits will have a kind of a raw floury taste. So you definitely want to make sure the ingredients are incorporated. And we found that if you do it this way and stir it 15 times, you'll have the perfect texture dough. [SOUND] Okay. So I've done 15 stirs. And as you can see, the dough has kind of pulled away from the sides of the bowl. We're ready to roll. You want to take some more self-rising flour and lightly flour your surface. And then turn the dough out onto the surface. [MUSIC] We like to use a rolling pin to roll our dough and that's because the heat of your hands will sometimes melt the butter and we don't want it to be melted, we want it to stay cold. So I'm gonna sprinkle a little bit of flour on the top and flour my rolling pin and then I'm gonna shape this into A rectangle. And, then what you're going to do is take the rectangle and fold it in half. And this is a layering process that will help the biscuits get lots of flaky layers. So, I'm going to actually do this folding process, I'm going to turn the dough and do it four more times. So, five times total. After we roll it this time, we're going to cut it so I'm going to roll it to about a half inch thick. [MUSIC] So before you start cutting, you want to have a [SOUND] jelly roll pan or baking sheet ready with parchment paper on it. What you want to do is dip the cutter in the flour before each cut and then cut straight up and down. When you get to the end and you can't fit anymore, don't worry you'll be rolling the scraps. [MUSIC] But take the biscuits that you've cut out and place them on the parchment paper so that they're touching. When they're touching they kind of help each other rise in the oven. Okay so we've got them on the parchment lined paper, all nestled together, and I'm going to put them in the oven at 475 for about 15 minutes. Okay so these have baked in the oven at 475 for 15 minutes. You can see they've risen up and they look flaky and fluffy. And the last thing we're gonna do is brush them with some melted butter. And here you have it, Southern Living's perfect buttermilk biscuit. [MUSIC]</p>